This is the best way that I have found.
- Take off the upper fairing, wheel and fender.
You really need a stem stand, or to jack up the front under the headers
so that you don't have the bike's weight leveraging on the lower clamp.
- Note your current fork tube height
- Loosen up the clamps on one fork and lower it until the fork is not touching
the upper clamp at all (but is very close)
- Then re-tighten the lower clamp bolts (always working in a back and forth
sequence between the bolts and using 4+ cycles to fully tighten (don't over
tighten either))
- Hover your eye over each fork taking care to close one eye and center the
other directly over the center of the fork.
Now you need to decide if things are simply twisted, or the lower clamp is tweaked.
If one leg is more forward and the other is back, then you can probably just loosen
the top clamp and index it to the lower clamp. If both forks are in the same direction
I will use the fork as a lever (holding the top and bottom) and pivoting it around the
lower clamp to tweak it back into alignment.
To index the clamps:
- Break the top clamp nut loose
- Then move one fork back up into its normal height, tighten the lower clamp,
then the upper clamp pinch bolt.
- Now go back to the dropped fork and sight it again.
If it's out of alignment, I try to fix that by tweaking both side of the lower clamp like
above. If it's close, loosen its lower clamp bolts only just enough so it slides without
a lot of resistance. You want it tight enough so that the fork can't wobble though.
Make sure it slides right up into the upper clamp without needing to realign.
Get both forks set to the same height, or better yet use the same technique with
the axle to align the two fork lowers.
- Tighten the lower pinch bolts first, then just snug the upper pinch bolts (the top
clamp nut is still loose)
- Set your clip on positions and tighten them.
- Now use your torque wrench on the top nut, but DO NOT let the steering stop be
what supports your torquing effort. This will put twist into your clamps. You
want the steering to be in the middle and to use the clip-ons to hold it straight. They
are effectively part of the upper clamp and will let you tighten the clamps without
twisting them. Torque it to factory spec because it is this clamping force that holds
the clamps in alignment and resists them twisting again. Now, loosen the upper pinch
bolts and re-tighten.
- Make sure everything is tight at this point.
- Put the fender on, then scotchbrite the axle, clean it and give a coat of WD40 and
check that when installed into the forks (with the pinches loose) it will spin and move
very easily (very important).
- Put the wheel up in there.
- Push the axle through until the large end bottoms against the wheel and the right fork
lower. Put the axle bolt in and tighten it. I use my fingers on the big end to hold it enough
to snug the bolt.
- Now tighten the big end pinch bolts (back and forth). Finish torquing the big axle bolt, then
loosen the big end pinch bolts and tighten the small end pinch bolts.
- Put the weight back on the front wheel and while holding the front brake, bounce on the
front a few times, trying to compress it as far as you can.
- Then go ahead and tighten the big end pinch bolts.
This process lets the floating fork leg to find its proper alignment, which keeps the forks from binding.
